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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23133205">Gifts of the Magus</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Clever_friend/pseuds/Clever_friend'>Clever_friend</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Damien (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>M/M, UST</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 07:35:04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,044</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23133205</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Clever_friend/pseuds/Clever_friend</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>First Charlie gives Damien a camera, then – other people’s lives.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Damien Thorn/Charles Powell</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Gifts of the Magus</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Translated into English by <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kana_Go">Kana_Go</a></p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    
<p></p><div>
  <p><i>But I have this against thee, that thou didst leave thy first love</i><br/>
(Revelation 2:4)</p>
</div><br/>“I need the best camera,” Charlie said at the store.<br/>The sales assistant started asking questions he didn’t understand so Charlie repeated, “Just the best one. I know nothing about them, it’s a gift for a friend.”<p>When he saw the price he swallowed and said, “I’ll be back for it by Christmas.”</p><p>He didn’t manage to save the right amount by Christmas. Which was probably a good thing: Damien didn’t like Christmas anyway. It was easy to see why: when you’d had to stay in different boarding schools during holidays since the age of seven while your schoolmates went home, you weren’t likely to enjoy a holiday.</p><p>But now when everyone had returned to the school with their gifts he collected money really quickly. He had no problems: someone forgot to close their locker, someone put their wallet next to them and got distracted. Cray, for example, slipped a hundred into his back pocket and walked around the school like that as if asking someone to take it.</p><p>Charlie could come up with a lot of thoughtful arguments about someone leaving their money in plain sight and therefore willing to be robbed, but he was honest with himself: in this case, all these arguments were wrong. It wasn’t because the students at Princeton School were very absent-minded – Charlie had a goal and someone invisible helped him.<br/>
Someone like a guardian angel. Someone who also wanted Damien to receive a present.</p><p><i>Maybe his dead parents are watching from Heaven and blessing us</i>, Charlie thought. He was absolutely sure he wasn’t doing anything wrong. Well, they said it was wrong to steal, but he was a new Robin Hood: he took money from the rich to give it to a millionaire. Because Damien was a millionaire after all, even if he never had any pocket money. Because his guardians didn’t care about him at all.</p><p>The hundred he had fished out of Cray’s pocket was the last one, it was time to go to the store.</p><p>*</p><p>Now when the camera sat on Damien’s bed Charlie suddenly started questioning the idea. Damien could refuse the gift – he had constantly told him to go away and stop following him. Sometimes he had added they weren’t even friends. It was a lie of course: they were friends. They had no one except each other: nobody wanted to be friends with Charlie because he was an outsider, and Damien had scared everyone away himself. Everyone except Charlie. When Damien had realized that his arrogant face and constant demands to go straight to hell didn’t work, he’d explained everything in detail and with examples. It was dangerous to be his friend. He was transferred from one school to another for a good reason. Everyone needed to stay away from him.<br/>
<br/>
But Charlie didn’t want to stay away. He wanted to stay as close as possible.<br/>
<br/>
The door opened and Damien headed for his bed.<br/>
“Careful,” Charlie said quickly. “There’s your gift there. Mer… Happy New Year.”<br/>
<br/>
Damien stopped, picked up the camera and looked at Charlie with a strange look on his face – as if his mask of a buttoned-down snob was hit with a stone and smashed to pieces and under it there was fear and also pity. And mirth. And fondness.<br/>
<br/>
“You’re such a fool,” he said. And added, “I warned you, I asked you…”<br/>
Then he got quiet.<br/>
<br/>
“Do you like it?” Charlie asked carefully. “I know nothing about them, we can go exchange it if you need a different one…”<br/>
<br/>
Damien held the camera tight as if he’d never gotten any presents before. <i>Maybe he really hasn’t</i>, Charlie thought suddenly, <i>maybe his guardians don’t even remember that they’re supposed to give him Christmas gifts</i>.<br/>
“Let’s go try it tomorrow,” Damien offered unexpectedly. “I’ll take photos of everything and you’ll come with me. If you want. We can skip classes.”<br/>
<br/>
“Let’s go after classes,” Charlie objected.<br/>
Everything was happening too fast even from his point of view.<br/>
<br/>
“Why waste time? We have too little of it. We should skip classes more often now.”</p><p>“It doesn’t matter to you, but my future depends on my studies.”<br/>
<br/>
“Your future,” Damien smiled bitterly. “Don’t you get it? You have no future, Charlie. You won’t live to take exams.”<br/>
Apparently Damien wasn’t much of a prophet. Charlie really didn’t have to take exams, but he had the future. Just it wasn’t the future he’d imagined.<br/>
<br/>
*<br/>
<br/>
Five years had passed and every day Charlie thought that Damien would get back to him on this very day. And if not today then surely tomorrow. And if Damien was still not here that was only because he tried to protect him. Damien loved him. Of course, Damien loved him. That was the reason he’d never visited him at the hospital. He didn’t want Charlie to get worse.<br/>
<br/>
A woman entered the store and Charlie already knew what she was about to ask. He could recognize these people before they started to talk.<br/>
<br/>
“Don’t you happen to know a man called Damien Thorn?” she asked.<br/>
That was what he thought. He’d got used to it. Of course, they didn’t come to him by accident – Damien’s guardian angel led them here. Or his dead parents.<br/>
<br/>
“Don’t I happen to know him?” he repeated plaintively, unbuttoned his shirt and showed his burn scars. “Just look what he did to me!”<br/>
<br/>
They always believed him. It looked like no one could see these burns without believing him. The woman talked about a threat to the whole world, about death and salvation, and he agreed on everything she said and then he told her, “I can lead you to him. He trusts me, he thinks I’m on his side.”<br/>
<br/>
A morning paper said that the police had found her body. They were without a suspect. The guardian angel knew what he was doing: nobody doubted Charlie’s words and he didn’t leave any evidence.<br/>
<br/>
He had only one dream: one day when Damien returned Charlie would tell him about his reaping, how he’d been killing them all this time – as a gift.<br/>
<br/>
And then Damien would love him. Then Damien would love him again.</p>
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